PAPER DOLLS ALPHABET FAT BOOK

The Paper Dolls have been running an alphabet fat book and are now up to the letter U, Joana set a sketch for this letter and here is mine.

Sunday Stampers Challenge - words

At last my crafting mojo seems to be coming back albeit slowly - so I attempted the Sunday Stampers challenge this week which is 'Words'. I decided to make a trifold card with tags - the result is below.

A Marathon of a Book

A family friend participated in last weekend's London Marathon. He finished in 5 hours and 52 minutes raising £6,000+ for his chosen charity WIZO. I thought he deserved a small souvenir or his brilliant race - well done Barry.

CSF BIRTHDAY BOOKS

and finally my envelope for the last book I am participating in - The High Fivers "Blast from the Past" book.

I made a collage from some old sepia family photos and scanned it into my computer. I then printed the collage out on to silk and vellum. I really liked the silk printing as the ink had blurred slightly on the fabric and gave an older effect, I used the silk to cover the envelope with.

I decided that all my embellishments on this project would be in copper to keep in with the old feeling and edged the envelope with copper peel offs. I added a Joanna Sheen stamped fan (on vellum) and a couple of other small stamped images to the front of the envelope. A couple more completed the back of the envelope. The inside of the envelope is a rich chocolate brown so only need a stamped vellum image on the inside of the flap.

The insert - I added a few pieces of the vellum printed collage to the front and secured them with a piece of acetate and copper brads. One of the pictures is particularly old being of my husbands great grandmother, I mounted this behind a Joanna Sheen frame that I had stamped onto vellum and mounted it on to the acetate, just adding a couple more peel offs to complete the front.
On the reverse of the insert I mounted a piece of backing paper that I had 'aged' with distress inks, added a couple of peel offs and a few crystals to the corners. I then stamped a Victorian collage onto vellum and embossed with copper powder. I ripped the edges and chalked them, then added this to the back of the insert. My project was now completed.

I've Been Tagged...

by my friend Nicky - think this is where I should thank you Nicky, but not sure as I can't think of 7 random facts about me. Ok let's have a think.

1. I can touch my nose with my tongue (why would anyone ever want to be able to do that you are wondering).

2. I am a natural redhead and have the quick temper to go with it - it doesn't rear it's ugly head very often but keep your head down when it does.

3. I am vegetarian.

4. I am a Neil Diamond 'fan'atic.

5. I didn't learn to swim until I was 30 and still wont swim out of my depth.

6. I love grapes - always eating them.

7. I am painfully shy.

ok that's enough rubbish about me. Now I need to nominate 5 people so I''l hand the rather dubious privilege over to

Heidi

Joana

Jackie

and my sistahs
AnnR
and
Fae.

CSF BIRTHDAY BOOKS

Here is my second envelope. This time it is for the High Fivers book "Love Letters". As I hadn't got an idea of what I wanted to end up with before I started on this one, I was quite pleased with the result.

The front of the envelope

The back of the envelope

Inside the envelope.

The front of the Insert.

The back of the insert.

Papertake Challenge

The challenge on Papertake this week is to make a box from Claudia's tutorial and here is mine. These boxes will be really handy and I plan on adding a few bits and pieces - notelets, note book, album etc - all made to match the box, it will make a nice little present.

New Baby

Having been reliably informed by my daughter in law that her sister in law was expecting a boy I duly made my cards. Well the baby arrived this morning - welcome to the world little Olivia, yes a girl. I had to make another card for the proud grandparents, fortunately I had plenty of baby girl cards for the proud mum and dad but wanted something special for the grandparents.

CSF BIRTHDAY BOOKS

Craft Swap Forum is celebrating it's second birthday this month and we are again making books to auction for the forum charity. I am participating in 3 books and this is the first - Simon's 'Going Postal' book. I chose to use 3 methods of communication during the first and second World Wars.

The front of the envelope has a copy of an envelope used by my grandmother during the first World War to send money to my grandfather in France. The envelope is firstly marked 'Missing' and then marked 'Wounded' - it finally arrived at my grandfather's bedside in a military field hospital. The cost of sending this Registered Letter was just one penny.

The insert is decorated on the front with a copy of a telegram sent by my father to my mother during the second Worl War to tell her what time he would be home on leave.


The back of the insert has some extracts from the only love letter my mother kept from my father during the second World War and a small picture of him in Navy uniform and without the name of his ship on his hat. He was sunk twice during the war and my mother put his survival down to an old superstition - bearing in mind he couldn't swim I just put it down to it not being his time. When my brother was born at the beginning of the war his face was covered by a cawl, superstition has it that if you carry a cawl you will never drown and my father carried my brother's cawl throughout the war.

Birthday Books Chat

This posting is dedicated to my fellow High Fivers and the birthday books we are making for the Charity Auction. If what I am putting here seems totaly obvious to you then please just make allowances for my older brain and the fact that I need things in black and white. Also having been involved in one of these before I have seen how things can go terribly wrong and a piece of art that someone has worked long and hard over is totally the wrong way round for the book.

So the following two envelopes are how the front of your envelope will be with the flap folded out so you can see which side it should be on. The books will be bound down the left hand side.

The first photo is for the Love Letters (C6 portrait) pages.

this second envelope is for the Blast from the Past page (C6 landscape).

we can add to this here if anyone has any other questions or ideas, then at least we can make sure we are all singing from the same sheet and will end up with a beautiful book. Don't forget though nothing is written in stone and if anyone is unhappy we can alter things but I know people want to get on and we dont want any problems once any of the envelopes are made.

Have fun and let's make loads of money for the charity - luv and hugs Bee - xx

Pink Petticoat Book

I love my Pink Petticoat papers and images and decided to make a book for a friend using them. It was so easy to do and I am quite pleased with the result.

SCRUMMY STASH CAFE

Sometimes the simplest things are the most effective. This Laura Ashley box had housed a perfume candle and has been sitting on my desk for a couple of weeks asking to be altered. It was a very pretty box to start with, a pale peach in colour with embossed cream flowers - but it had a few pieces of annoying print to spoil it.

I decided I only needed to disguise the printing so added a brown and pink ribbon around the base on to which I had fixed one of my Bee charms using a brad, and using a second brad to fix the ribbon into place. I then added a few pink and brown flowers over the main printing fixing them in place with contrasting large brads.

I made a hole in the centre of the lid and threaded a loop of pink ribbon with brown polka dots through a brown flower and the through the centre hole, fixing the ends of the ribbon to the underside of the lid. My box was completed and I am really pleased with it.

Here are a couple of other things that I've recently altered and are featured elsewhere on my blog - this was a little pink pail....

and this was a boring old clipboard.....

Sunday Stampers Challenge Week 11

This card is much, much busier than my normal style but for once busy looked right - must be my temperature is addling my brain. I created the background using Tim Holtz Distress Inks in Frayed Burlap, Antique Linen, Brushed Corduroy and Aged Mahogany. I then misted it with Tattered Angels Antique Gold. I stamped my four modes or travel onto white card using VersaMagic Chalk Ink in Jumbo Java, tore the edges round the images and chalked the edges using a dark brown chalk. The card was divided into four quarters using thin brown ric rac secured with brass brads. The four images were mounted using 3d foam pads into the four sections. I stamped travel words using black Stazon in the spaces and then added 4 little travel images I'd stamped onto white card and cut out.

The card still looked a tad 'bare' so I tied on 4 pieces of coral shell using brown cotton and added a couple of highlights using crushed shells in creams and coral shades. Now was the time to step away or I would add too much and ruin the effect I was aiming for. I am quite pleased with this card and now just have to get my hands clean as it was quite messy to make.

Papertake, Theme Thursdays & Make a Moo

I managed to 'challenge' myself and combine 3 challenges with this one. The challenge to myself was to see if I could combine 3 challenges into one and I did. The Papertake challenge this week is 'Making Waves' using curves or zig zags - the Joanna Sheen backing paper is made up of lines of zig zags in different shades of orange and orangey red. The Theme Thursday challenge is 'Orange and Black' so I continued my orange theme using orange rick rack, edging with orange ink pad and embellishing with orange and black stones. The Make a Moo challenge is 'Swirls & Flourishes' so I used my Tim Holtz large flourish stamp.

I made 3 moos and joined them together or a gold jump ring, I also added small squares of mountboard to the bottom of each moo again joining with a jump ring. The only other addition was my Live, Laugh, Love stamp which is a real favourite of mine.

NIKKI'S CARD CREATIONS - CANDY UP FOR GRABS

Nikki is offering blog candy. Find her blog here Nikki's Card Creations: 15,000 hits Blog Candy

go and have a look.

xx

You Cheer Me Up Award

A big thank you to Shaz and to Shazza for giving me this award. It's now my pleasure to pass it on to

Fae

Maria

Tonya

Becky

&

Hilda

xx

Sweet Sugar & Arty Girlz Challenges

The Sweet Sugar Challenge this fortnight is 2 Male Cards, so I made two featuring Hamish stamps - I just adore this little guy, he's so cute.

The second card also fits the Arty Girlz challenge as that is 'Triangles' and I made this card using different hues of blue triangles.

Funky Fairies

I decided to join the Funky Fairies Challenge this week, which is 'Tall and Skinny'. Well this Bella image is very tall and skinny so I added heer to a tall and skinny card.

TILDA CHALLENGE

This week's Tilda challenge is 'Mix and Match' your stamps. So I added the head from Tilda with the frog prince to Baking Tilda and ended up with the Queen of Hearts. A cute card to send to my little grandaughter Emmie.